At just 36, Leah Martinez faced the unimaginable—a breast cancer diagnosis that changed her life. With strength and determination, she navigated through fear, treatment, and recovery, all while finding unwavering support from her family and medical team. Leah’s story inspires vigilance and reminds us of the power of compassion during life’s hardest moments.
Transcript
0:00 hi I'm Leah Martinez I am 37 I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 36 and I
0:07 am married with two daughters and this is my journey my grandma was diagnosed
0:14 with breast cancer and she passed away at 57 I was a teenager and loved my grandma dearly and it really broke my
0:22 heart because by the time she was diagnosed she at stage 4 she went through chemo I remember being with with
0:30 her through her chemo and she passed away like a month or two after chemo it just spread throughout her body and it
0:37 was really devastating so I have always been terrified of getting breast cancer any type of cancer but I have thought I
0:45 can do my part in always checking my breast and I always checked my breast I would always um monitor them I was
0:55 working out and it was Thanksgiving last year and me and my husband went to the gym and I worked out my chest and I
1:02 always strucked my breast but that night I was like hurting and I touched my breast and there was a lum and I was
1:09 like that's so weird came home and went to the doctor's and the doctor told me it's just dense tissue I know what
1:17 cancer feels like that is not cancer and I said it hurts and she said cancer doesn't hurt and I said well I want to make sure that everything is fine I'm a
1:26 warrior I did my mamogram and my ultra sound here with rad and they were great and they found something well I was like of course they're going to find
1:33 something I have a lump you know so they wanted to um do a biopsy so I came in
1:41 for my biopsy with my mom and I just thought it was it's going to be fine we're going to go to lunch after everything's going to be great the
1:48 ultrasound tech came in got the picture of my lump on the Monitor and my mom looks at me and she
1:57 goes that doesn't look right so the doctor comes in and he goes has anybody talked to you yet I said about what he's
2:06 like I'm 99.9% sure that you have breast cancer that's when my whole life
2:14 changed the ultrasound texts were so sweet there was another lady that was there um she was training and they both held my hand and they just would like
2:23 rub my leg and hold my hand and tell me everything's okay they were really like sympathetic to like my needs and they
2:30 were just there for me to understand what I was going through and she both of them actually would just hold my hand
2:40 and tell me everything's going to be okay they were really sweet yeah and then same was the doctor he was funny he would like make jokes and he was just
2:48 trying to help me through because doing the biopsy as well is like really scary with the big needle like what they have
2:55 to take out so with the doctors through my insurance I um spoke to a couple of doctors to them went and they all agreed
3:04 to do the double masectomy they were hoping that I wouldn't have to do chemo because it wasn't in my lymph nodes but
3:10 by the time I did do my surgery in June it was in my lymph nodes at that time so I had 12 lymph noes taken out and five
3:18 of them did have cancer so with that I did have to do chemo and
3:25 radiation that was really hard because like mentally my husband would watch me die I'm dying and he
3:33 can't do anything to help me so that was really hard for him because he wants to be there to protect me and he couldn't
3:40 my girls that's been really hard because I have a 17 and 15-year-old and my 17-year-old is her senior year and I
3:49 should be going through college tours and helping her with her college applications and that was really hard
3:56 because I was sick so that chemo for the first four rounds were really hard um
4:02 laid in bed for over a week just the nausea the dry mouth
4:09 and now I'm over that I got past that now I'm on a my last four sessions and I
4:16 feel amazing like I feel so good I'm ready to go back to work but I still have two more sessions of
4:24 chemo I believe that you should push to get blood work done like mammogram you
4:31 know because it doesn't hurt and it could prevent something that is so little to becoming something so big
4:39 because you waited so long so I do feel like maybe my breast cancer had four months to grow because I just kind of
4:48 took my time with that part because I did think that it was just a lump it was Den's tissue I do kind of wish that I
4:56 pushed a little bit harder to make sure I got that mamogram done faster every time I think about my journey and when people talk about it or they ask me
5:05 about it I think about the tech especially the ultrasound text and the doctor that was there when I was getting my biopsy I just can't even describe
5:13 like how much I appreciate them and how much they made me feel so calm in such a
5:21 devastating time because they didn't need to they don't have to they went above and beyond to make me feel
5:30 that I was also like maybe their family member that they were just going through this process with so um I really
5:37 appreciate them